Black Bean and Avocado-Jalapeno Turnip Noodle Bowl

Over the weekend, I went to Westport, Massachusetts with my girlfriends. My friend Sarah’s parents have a vacation home there and we drove up there late Friday night and spent the weekend relaxing and hanging out.

In preparation for leaving, I had to cook a lot on Friday so that I had posts for Sunday and today. While I could have sworn that I grocery shopped in anticipation of this, when I opened my fridge on Friday, it was slim pickings.

I walked back over to my desk, grabbed a pen and my notepad and wrote down everything substantial that was in my fridge.

Literally, aside from some condiments and the usual (celery, carrots, onions, almond milk), that was it.

So, I put my thinking cap on and realized that I had a can of black beans in the pantry and lots of spices (as always!) and I set out to make a stir-fry, using peppers, onions and the turnip.

Instead of making an Asian-themed stir-fry, I went with some classic Mexican flavors. This dish is spicy, flavorful, and packed with veggies, protein and of course, everyone’s favorite: a big dollop of mashed avocado.

Adding a spoonful of mashed avocado to any dish is one of my favorite ways to add more dimension to a meal. While you spin the noodles around your fork, you can then dip the noodles in the avocado OR you can simply mix it altogether.

This meal also saves extremely well, since the turnip noodles reheat well (they’re pretty resilient!) and they don’t leak moisture like zucchini noodles do.

Top with some feta or cotija cheese for extra flavor here – and you can also switch up the proteins as you like – chicken and shrimp would work really well.

It’s an easy, lean meal for this week for lunch or dinner, depending on how you doctor it up!

Place a large skillet over medium heat and add in the olive oil. Once oil heats, add in garlic, jalapeno, peppers and onions. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until vegetables begin to soften. Add in the cayenne, smoked paprika, cumin and oregano and season with salt and pepper.

Stir the mixture and then add in the turnip noodles, black beans, and vegetable broth and cook for another 5 minutes or until turnip noodles are cooked through.

While turnips are cooking, mix together the ingredients for the avocado mash and set aside.

When turnip noodles are cooked, serve into bowls and top with a dollop of avocado mash.

You’ve done it again! Yum! I have a question about the first item on the list of the ingredients. It’s the olive oil: there is a decimal before the 5, does that mean 1/2 a tablespoon of oil or 5 tablespoons? There’s a big difference so I want to make it correctly. Is it true there are 69 carbs? WOW! That’s like a few days worth! What do you suggest I do to lower that number? Thanks!

Unfortunately, turnips, avocados and black beans all contribute to that high carb count! They are all unprocessed carbs (as all carbs shouldn’t be created equally!) If you want to tone the carb count down, swap in a different protein here.